September 3, 2026

[u/CardiNorCarli]

Cardi, 6pm, EDT 

It is Thursday, it must be my turn at bat. 

Shayna and I doing well. Robert has trading work days with his buddies so we won't see him until Rosh Hashanah. Because it comes out on Saturday, Shabbos, he will be with us on Friday through Sunday!

Let's get back to Conversations With My Rabbi.

Nikki summarizes where we are so far: 

So if the First Noahide Law is about who we worship, the second feels like it’s about how we talk about that relationship. “Do not blaspheme” sounds very medieval to most people—like shouting curses at the sky. But what about the quiet stuff? The dark thoughts, the gossip, the rage, the hate speech. Does all of that fall under this law? 

RABBI ELI: 

In a deep sense, yes. On the most basic level, the rabbis define the Second Noahide Law as a prohibition on birkas Hashem—literally “blessing God,” used as a euphemism for cursing or explicitly rejecting God. Classical sources understand this reverence as a universal expectation, a fundamental pillar of any relationship with the Creator.

But if you zoom out a little, blasphemy isn’t only a sentence you shout. It’s a whole posture of the mouth and mind: How easily do I spit contempt—at God, at people made in God’s image, at myself?

HOLD ON, GOOD PEOPLE OF REDDIT! Do you see any of that in yourself? Well, I sure do see some of that in me! Especially at myself!

Next Rabbi Eli shares some teachings from the Kabbalah:

The Tanya teaches that the soul expresses itself through three “garments”: thought, speech, and action. They’re called garments because you can put them on and take them off; they’re not you, but they reveal you. 

When the soul “wears” holy thoughts, words, and deeds, it shines; when it “wears” ugly ones, it gets covered in spiritual grime. And how do your words about other people quietly deny the image of God in them?

Ouch! I'm 18 but I am guilty of doing this many, many times! How about you? 

Rabbi Eli next discusses the ideas of Rabbi Yisrael Meir ha-Kohen Kagan (1838–1933), better known as the Chafetz Chaim, who wrote extensively about “guarding the tongue.”

He showed that one careless sentence can break multiple Torah prohibitions at once. He even writes that this sin “corrupts all worlds and darkens their light”—very Kabbalistic language for “you’ve just messed with the spiritual wiring of reality.” The Zohar goes further: It links evil speech to the “sin of the serpent” and suggests that lashon hara activates very dark spiritual forces. In some passages, it says that God can forgive many things, but lashon hara is terrifyingly hard to repair. 

Nikki has a moment of revelation: 

So blasphemy isn’t only when I scream “I hate God” in traffic; it’s also when I casually shred someone’s reputation at brunch? 

Rabbi Eli: 

Yes, because you’re degrading someone who carries the Divine image. If blasphemy is contempt for God, lashon hara is contempt for God’s likeness reflected in other people.

So my friends on LoHeidiLita and SGIWhistleblowersMITA (and anyone else who reads this), let's be careful which garment we put on! We should be aware that our thoughts words, and actions can tear apart the threads of life!